The first full NFL game I remember watching was back in January of 1990. It pitted the Denver Broncos and their top-ranked defense against Joe Montana and the San Francisco 49ers. It was the start of this one scribe's infatuation with everything 49ers. They were the center of my sports universe for the next several years of my adolescence. Ultimately, the 49ers came out on top by the score of 55-10 in the Super Bowl XXIV against Denver. It was an absolute annihilation.

Fast forward over a quarter-century, and Montana's name in football lore has been replaced by none other than former 49ers super-fan Tom Brady. The future Hall of Famer will soon make his record eighth appearance in the Super Bowl. And with a win Sunday against the Philadelphia Eagles, any debate regarding whether he's the greatest of all-time can come to a conclusion.

But I am here to say that debate should already be a thing of the past. Brady doesn't need a win in Super Bowl LII to prove that he stands above Montana as the greatest of all-time. And there's not a single quarterback outside of these two who even belong on the conversation.

The numbers really don't lie here. Brady will enter his age-41 season with the fourth-most passing yards and and third-most passing touchdowns in league history. He also boasts the NFL record for quarterbacks with 196 career regular season wins and postseason wins with 27.

Some might want to point to wins not actually being a quarterback stat. That's fine. It's also an outdated philosophy, especially when looking at someone of Brady's ilk.

Here's a guy that has continually won with different supporting casts throughout his career. For example, all 11 of Brady's pass-catchers this season were teenagers when he won the Super Bowl over Philadelphia back in 2005. Eagles head coach Doug Pederson was one year removed from retiring from the game. That's just some crazy stuff there.

It's this type of sustained success that transcends stats and differences between eras. It's also in this that we're able to look past the fact that Montana himself played in an era that was much more friendly to defenses around the NFL. That's one primary reason we're not even going to pretend to compare Montana's regular season numbers to that of Brady.

Joe Montana is the only quarterback we can compare to Tom Brady. (Photo by Michael Zagaris/San Francisco 49ers/Getty Images)

What we can say is that the four Super Bowls Montana won with the 49ers in a nine-year stretch during the 1980s came at a time when the salary cap was non-existent. Without a cap in what they could spend, the 49ers were able to employ a half-dozen Hall of Famers during the 1989 season, including two quarterbacks in Montana and Steve Young. Their third-string quarterback, Steve Bono, played 15 seasons in the NFL and actually led Kansas City to a 13-3 record several seasons later.

Fast forward nearly three decades, and the only sure-fire Hall of Famer on this Patriots roster is Brady himself.

Having success during the salary cap era has to mean something. His teams have continually seen dramatic turnover throughout his career. Consider this: The Patriots have seen their roster turn over at about a one-third clip following each of the five Super Bowls they have won during the Brady era. That includes nearly two-dozen new players from a season ago.

For comparison's sake, the 1989 version of Montana's 49ers saw three new starters join the team from the 1988 Super Bowl championship squad.

Simply put, Montana had a whole heck of a lot more talent to work with in a league where the talent itself was seemingly concentrated to a few top-tier teams. In an age of supposed parity, Brady and the Pats continue to reign supreme.

Taking into account the sustained success we've seen from Brady with a lesser supporting cast than Joe Cool, and it seems to be an exercise in futility to counter the argument supporting Brady as GOAT. In Brady's 16 full seasons as a starter, New England has made the playoffs 15 times with just as many division titles. During that span, the Pats have won 12-plus games a total of a dozen times. To compare for a second, in the 11 seasons that Montana acted as the 49ers' primary starter, they missed the playoffs twice and earned 12-plus wins a total of five times. Keep in mind that this was during an era that teams could stack their roster without any thought given to a salary cap.

Much like the Michael Jordan comparisons we've see drawn around the NBA world for the past two decades, this is a debate that will continue to rage. Brady can go on to win three more Super Bowls (in addition to the five he's already won), and some will point to his two Super Bowl losses as reason enough to place Montana No. 1 overall. Those same people will point to Montana's perfect Super Bowl record and 11 touchdowns compared to zero interceptions to change the debate in their favor.

But unlike Jordan, we're no longer at the point where the comparison has to be drawn to him in a debate. We're now comparing other quarterbacks to Tom Brady. That in and of itself is a changing of the tide that suggests Brady is the greatest of all-time. And he doesn't need a win Sunday in Super Bowl LII to prove that.

Editor at Large of Sportsnaut, contributor here at Forbes. Seen on Fox Sports and MSN. Heard on Fox Sports Radio and ESPN Radio. Previous bylines include: Bleacher Report, Pro Football Focus, Yahoo! Sports and eDraft.

Editor at Large at Sportsnaut. Contributor here at Forbes. Head editor at the start-up SNIPdaily. Seen on Fox Sports and MSN. Heard on ESPN Radio and Fox Sports Radio. Twitter, @VincentFrankNFL